


rebirth // salvation

by Heroine (Evoxine)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, Depression, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pseudo-Incest, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-07 19:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19091140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evoxine/pseuds/Heroine
Summary: Three years, nine months, and fourteen days after he’d last swung Stormbreaker and Thor still sees his brother wherever he looks. A flash of black and ivory outside in the open plains, rich emerald in the swish of a winter jacket, blue-green in the eyes of a mischievous child.The raw, gaping wound in Thor’s heart doesn’t seem to want to close, and honestly, Thor can’t really blame it. After all, one cannot fix themselves by breaking someone else.(in other words: just another re-telling of endgame)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akutagawas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akutagawas/gifts).



> This is my personal fix-it; I hope it does something good for you, too.
> 
> _Note: I have mixed aspects of comics!marvel in alongside the MCU. It shouldn't be jarring, but just a heads up!_

Living from day to day is getting a little stale, if Thor has anything to say about it. And he really does.

It’s been two years, eight months, and twenty-three days since he’d last swung Stormbreaker, since Thanos’ blood stained its blade, and since all of Thor’s desire for retribution died along with him. That’s a lot of days to live for nothing.

He’s gotten used to the routine now. Waking when the sun barely breaks past the horizon, drinking a pint of beer with his breakfast, training with Brunnhilde for hours just so he can feel as though he’d earned his next few pints. His evenings are spent holed up in his cottage playing games with Korg and Miek, letting the chill of the Norwegian air soak into his skin and bones – he tells them it’s because he likes the freshness of the wind, but he knows it’s just a twisted way to remember Loki by. When they retire for the night, he drinks himself to bed, leaving empty bottles lined up neatly by the window sill. They’re the first things he sees when he wakes up the next day.

What’s left of Asgard is but a handful of people, and although he still claims that Asgard is what the people make of it, he can’t help but think it’s all just a glorified idea wrapped up neatly in a bow. His people do not approach him, not for help or advice, and he cannot fault them for it, not when he knows he is the worst example of a king that Asgard has ever had in its history.

After all, which sensible person would seek counsel with a king that fails to keep himself going?

Thor isn’t delusional, he knows exactly how bad things have gotten. He’s the one who has to live in his mess of a cottage, stepping over dirty clothes and empty alcohol bottles, the short trip from his bed to the door a constant challenge in the dark. He’s the one who goes days without showering, despite hours upon hours of daily training, unable to bring himself to wash the dirt off a useless body that deserves to be covered in filth. He’s the one with nightmares, throat constantly ripped raw with how often he wakes up screaming, death and defeat bitter on his tongue.

Thor isn’t delusional. He just doesn’t care anymore.

The need to ask for help has long passed and Thor is certain that there is nothing anyone can do or say that will fix him. On some days, he’ll spend hours staring into the mirror, the once-shiny surface now dull and grimy after years of neglect. He drinks in the matted mess of his hair and beard, his pallid skin and the shadows under his eyes, and consistently arrives at the conclusion that he simply cannot be fixed.

It is what it is, he supposes. Perhaps he’s meant to make it this far in life just to be alone.

 

 

 

  
Oftentimes, Thor wonders how differently things would be if Loki were here. He would probably snark about the fact that they’ve settled in Tønsberg – “ _Really_ , Thor? Of all places, you pick the town where your people fought against my people – oh, don’t give me that look.” –, but he’d take to the role of rebuilding like a fish to water. Even better, Loki might do it not only for the glory and challenge of being the one to bring New Asgard to the heights of their destroyed realm, but also because he has now decided to call it home.

Home, Thor realises, was not Asgard. It is not New Asgard either, nor even the remaining citizens. Home is his family, and all of them are dead.

He sees Loki every night in his dreams. Sometimes Loki lingers for a few seconds, just a brief flash of glittering eyes and a sly smile, but sometimes he stays for hours, his death playing on a loop until Thor wakes with wet cheeks and a ringing ache in his chest.

For close to a decade, he had doubted Loki’s love for him. Loki liked to give just so he could take, and sometimes he would take so much from Thor that it overwhelmed him when Loki finally deigned to give.

When they were young, Thor would give Loki flowers from Frigga’s garden or his serving of dessert just to see Loki smile. Loki would take, would smile, but Thor only ever truly felt rewarded when spindly arms wound tight around his middle and squeezed. When they were on the cusp of adulthood and Thor finally earned the chance to go out on hunts, Loki would accept every single gift Thor brought back for him. Rare scrolls or tomes, elegant capes, exquisite jewellery – Loki took them all with just a quiet murmur of thanks. His brother’s gratitude has always been more than enough for Thor, but on rare occasions, Loki would give him more. A chaste brush of lips against a stubbly cheek or new vambraces practically vibrating with dozens of protection spells.

“You have to stay alive,” Loki told him once. He’d been spending more time with Frigga, dipping into challenging areas of seiðr, and gifted Thor with a thin dagger right after emerging from such a session. The blade was barely longer than the palm of his hand and Thor could almost taste Loki’s seiðr, heavy and strong, upon it. “If you don’t, who’s going to bring gifts back for me?”

Just once, when they were young men, grown into their bodies yet still struggling to grow into their roles as royals, Thor was the one who took. Body weary from training with Sif and the Warriors Three but mind active from the surge of energy, Thor exited his bathroom to see Loki curled up on his bed, furs all around him like a nest.

It had been weeks since Thor last laid eyes on Loki, one too busy with preparations to become King while the other embarked on a trip with Frigga for seiðr research. Warmth washed over him, from the crown of his head down to the tips of his toes, and despite the fact that the sun was still high in the sky, Thor slipped into bed alongside his brother.

Loki, dressed in a silk tunic, slumbered peacefully. Inky locks of hair spilled out across the gold of the sheets and Thor entertained himself with running his fingers through the strands, miraculously free of tangles and oh-so-soft. Then Loki shifted in his sleep and the deep emerald of his tunic slithered off a shoulder. All sharp lines and creamy skin, and Thor couldn’t quite help the sudden need to lean down and press his mouth against the jut of Loki’s clavicle.

One kiss became two, then three, then Thor’s tracked a path up the slope of Loki’s neck with his lips.

“Thor?”

Thor, mouth millimetres away from the curve of a shapely ear, paused.

“Loki.”

A heartbeat, then Loki turned his head and Thor found his lips brushed up against a pair of thin, soft ones.

“If you want to kiss me, at least do it right.”

He took from Loki that day, took everything his brother had to offer and then some. And Loki – Loki _gave_ , willingly and happily, and amidst cries of pleasure, Thor discovered the fine line between loving someone and being irrevocably in love with someone.

Then Odin’s lies rose up to the surface, and for a period of time, no matter how much Thor gave, Loki would not accept.

He did, however, gift Thor with many, many things. Bruises from vicious punches instead of the gentle pressure of teeth and broken armour from battles instead of rushed lovemaking. Stab wounds that lacked all traces of mirth and yet somehow managed to give Thor stupid glimmers of hope that some things will never change.

But time changes things.

It changes things to the point where Loki, instead of clamouring for chances to destroy his brother, tries to save his life instead. Loki, neither the embodiment of rotting evil nor a beacon for good (and always the sole soft spot in Thor’s heart), died trying to save him. Loki, sharp-tongued and quick-witted and gentle in ways that only Thor knows, _died_ trying to save _him_.

Thor isn’t as stupid as people tend to think he is – well, when it comes to the things that matter. He knows Loki like he knows the back of his hand, knows how his brother thinks and the motivation behind every single action. He knows how unpredictable Loki can be. He knows that Loki didn’t sacrifice himself to save the millions of people doomed to die at Thanos’ hands. For Loki has always been selfish, has always wanted to obtain and keep what he thought belonged to him, what he thought he deserved.

It took only mere moments after the Hulk collided with Thanos for Thor to figure it out. With Loki’s weight pressing him down into the ground, Thor couldn’t help but think it should be the other way around. Regret over what he’d just said seconds ago flooded his mouth, sour and stale, and he parted his lips to apologise –

But then Loki disappeared, Thor fought and lost, and he got distracted by the weapon sinking into the centre of Heimdall’s chest. Rage and grief and helplessness is a devastating cocktail of emotions, and it led to a front-row seat of the worst show Thor will ever see in the span of his long, long life.

He watched Loki’s lips move, chapped and pale and deserving of a thousand kisses, and the first few words were all a buzz in his ears. It wasn’t until _undying fidelity_ made its way through the noise that the dread broke through. He knows Loki, and Loki would never swear his loyalty to anyone that wasn’t himself. So what is he..?

The glint of the dagger had Thor straining against his binds, throat bulging with the screams that failed to make it past the gag. Tears sprung to his eye at the curl of Thanos’ hand around Loki’s slim neck, because _no no no, Loki cannot die, he cannot, he_ – but it turns out Loki _can_ die. And he does.

“You will never be a god.”

Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing, Thor thought hysterically, vision blurred with tears. What good is being a god if you fail to protect the people you love? Loki’s body rolled to a stop inches away from his knees, a dead god swathed in green leather and molten red around his once-pale neck.

Thor didn’t even fully register Thanos and the Black Order leaving.

The Statesman imploded all around him, slow and definite, and Thor pulled Loki close.

_I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry, please come back to me, you’re all I have left, please, please, I love –_

 

 

 

  
Three years, nine months, and fourteen days after he’d last swung Stormbreaker and Thor still sees his brother wherever he looks. A flash of black and ivory outside in the open plains, rich emerald in the swish of a winter jacket, blue-green in the eyes of a mischievous child.

The raw, gaping wound in Thor’s heart doesn’t seem to want to close, and honestly, Thor can’t really blame it. After all, one cannot fix themselves by breaking someone else.

 

 

 

  
Five years, one month, and nineteen days after he’d last swung Stormbreaker, Thor thinks that he’s gotten stunningly good at acting. It’s easy to laugh, to joke, to ignore the shambles of his past life – his once happy life – lying at his feet. Maybe the closest Midgardian theatre would like an extra actor on its roster? That thought is quickly banished when Thor thinks about Loki and his penchant for dramatic plays; an image of their time in Svartalfheim burns into the darkness behind his eyes and for a split moment, Thor feels the weight of Loki’s dying body in his arms. He coughs, lurches off the edge of his bed, and wills his pulse to slow.

Korg and Miek are currently taking up his couch, the only two creatures in New Asgard that aren’t repulsed by Thor’s current state of living. Preoccupied with juggling multiple slices of pizza, Miek pays no attention to Korg’s groan of disappointment when he gets shotgunned in the face.

“This game,” Korg says, queueing up for another match, “it’s both stupid and fun at the same time. Stupidly fun? Funnily stupid? Hmm.”

How Korg manages to use a controller with those thumbs is beyond Thor’s comprehension. Yet, the faint clicking of buttons is precise as he crosses the room in search of more beer, the sound oddly comforting to his ears. He’s in the middle of digging through a pile of crushed up beer cans when the front door swings open, letting in sunlight that illuminates the many particles of dust swirling in the stale air.

Oh, excellent. His cable’s been acting up and despite all of the years he’d spent on Midgard, Thor has absolutely no idea how to deal with Midgardian technology.

“Are you the cable guy?” He has finally managed to find an unopened bottle of beer and promptly engages in a wrestling match with it, while on screen, Korg’s character dashes up a ramp and leaps off the top. Moments later, they cheer in unison, albeit for different reasons.

Thor can hear footsteps, the muffled sounds getting louder by the second as it nears.

“My cable’s been –”

“...Thor?”

That’s definitely _not_ the cable guy. Thor freezes with a hand wrapped around the neck of the beer bottle, the other one halfway to pushing back strands of his ratty hair. Despite all the years spent away from them, it’s too easy to recognise their voices from his nightmares.

He wants to panic, wants to demand that they leave, wants to tell them to get as far away from him as possible, wants –

Instead, he turns around and smiles wide, feeling the muscles in his face twitch at the unfamiliar action. After all, acting like he doesn’t want what he wants is second nature now.

There, one too big and one too small, stand Bruce and Rocket. Silence blankets the room, heavy and uncomfortable, and Thor wants to itch at the uneasiness lying beneath his skin.

He takes a breath, then: “Boys!”

Miek squawks at the sheer volume of Thor’s voice, a chunk of melted cheese sliding off a pizza slice and plopping onto the stained couch. Korg remains unfazed, orange headphones perched daintily on his head as he chops away at a tree.

“Oh my god, it’s so good to see you!” Thor goes in for a hug – not because he wants to, but because doing so prevents him from having to look at the pity clear in their faces. Rocket squirms away from him and Thor finds himself wishing he could do the same.

“Hulk! You recognise Korg and Miek.”

Korg waves, Miek flaps a slice of pizza at Rocket – whose immediate distaste is very audible –, and Thor reluctantly lets Bruce have his attention.

“Do you guys want something to drink or eat? We get a lot of fish here, you know? Perhaps you would like to take some with you? I can ask Brunnhilde to –”

A heavy hand comes to rest on his shoulder and Thor’s jaw slams shut.

“Hey, you doing alright?”

Now that’s a question Thor hasn’t had to answer for years. He stares at Bruce, keenly aware of the buzz of static filling his mind. What is he supposed to say?

“I’m good,” is what he settles on, “why, don’t I look fine?”

“Well, you look… like you’ve been living in a cave for twenty years.” Rocket sniffs, then shudders. “Smell like it, too.”

Delirious laughter bubbles up into Thor’s throat and escapes over the curve of a dry tongue. He laughs for what feels like forever, the jarring sound ringing too loud in his ears.

“Yeah, alright.” He takes a swig of beer to wash away the taste of bile in his mouth. “So what brings you here to the glorious –” A wide sweep of his arms, – “place that is New Asgard?”

Bruce and Rocket exchange looks. “We need your help. There might be a chance that we could reverse everything.”

WIth another mouthful of warm beer, Thor watches as Korg opens a chest and finds a shitty green pistol. Korg tosses it moments later and Thor snorts. “Hm? Reverse?”

“Reverse what Thanos did.”

That name. Norns, that name is a searing brand to his gut, the molten metal of it melting through his flesh and muscle until grotesque heat is rushing up the bare bones of his spine. His body reacts to it before his mind does, turning to face Bruce and digging the blunt edges of his dirt-caked nails into his friend’s shirt.

“Don’t,” he whispers, “say that name.”

Then Korg is there, crowding them both in his solid build. He says something, gentle, but Thor cannot seem to discern the actual words. He does, however, register Bruce’s hand curling around his forearm and the pressure that comes along with it, his own fingers stiff with the need to rip something to shreds or to collide against a hard surface.

Bruce pries his shirt out of Thor’s grip.

“Look, I know that the very thought of Th – _that man_ – scares you, but we need your help.”

“Scared?” Thor barks, setting his beer down before he shatters the glass. “I’m the one that killed him, remember? _I’m_ the one that went for his fucking head. I’m not scared of him. He should be scared of me.”

Bruce nods, indulgent, and Thor gets the sudden urge to sink his fist into his friend’s gut.

“I’m not going back,” he says flatly. Beer back in hand, he shuffles over to an armchair and drops his entire weight down on its rickety frame. “Not going back.”

Rocket mutters something under his breath and Bruce nudges him with his foot, sending the raccoon sprawling out across the floor. He’s ready to bitch about the filth when he scrambles to his feet, but one look from Bruce has him shutting right up. Not that Thor cares.

“I think it’d be good for you. Getting out of here and all. We’ve all missed you, you know.”

Something lurches in the depths of Thor’s heart.

“I know you think I'm down here broken and wallowing in my own self-pity, waiting to be rescued, but I'm fine, alright? _I’m fine_.” There’s a packet of candy sitting on the table and Thor grabs for it, needing the distraction that snacking provides. “I don’t care about fixing things anymore. I don’t want to –” He inhales a shaky lungful of air and lets it out through his nostrils. _I don’t want to fail anymore._

“I understand,” says Bruce. “But we need you.”

Need. So many people _need_ so many things.

Thor scoffs, bitter.

“We’ll give you all the booze you want,” Rocket says, clearly a last-ditch effort, and the sheer ridiculousness of it has Thor’s walls crumbling around his feet.

“Fine, whatever. When do we leave?”

 

 

 

  
Surrounded by people he once – still? – trusted with his life and being in a building that embodies strength and capability makes his skin crawl. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want the clean sheets or the shower that’s large enough to run laps in. Most of all, he doesn’t want anyone to treat him like he’s spun glass.

Alas, he has learned that one does not always get what they want.

Steve takes over Brunnhilde’s responsibility, sparring with Thor whenever the latter feels the need to sweat out the mess of thoughts in his head. He never fails to give Thor a hug at the end of each session, the embrace something that Thor wants to both pull away from and burrow deeper into at the same time.

Bruce makes it a point to talk to him once a day, each conversation decidedly not about time travel or Thanos and lasting a minimum of thirty minutes. Unsurprisingly, the conversation is usually one-sided, Bruce content with his tub of ice cream and his own voice filling the space. Thor doesn’t exactly hate this new addition to his routine, but it takes a great amount of willpower to stay on that couch, squished up against the armrest, until Bruce takes his leave.

Tony, bless his heart, treats him exactly the same as Thor remembers. There’s no coddling, no sugar-coating, none of that _please let me make you feel better_ shit, and it gets Thor thinking about the man he was before Thanos. It feels like a lifetime ago, but somehow he still finds it in himself to respond to every single nickname that Tony comes up with.

“You can’t just _kill baby Thanos_ ,” Tony’s saying, waving some fancy tool about in the air as Scott Lang frowns, probably digging through his mental treasure trove of time travel movies for a rebuttal. One glance at the constipated look on Scott’s face has Tony rolling his eyes and going, “If you can’t understand why, then you really shouldn’t be meddling with time travel.”

“Okay, but what if we –”

“We can’t do anything that changes the outcome of past-Thanos’ future,” Thor finds himself saying. He’s tucked into a corner of Tony’s lab, having discovered that watching the man work is a form of stress-relief. “It’s modal logic. If the past happened in a certain way, then it is logically impossible for the past to have occurred in any other way. So if you meddle with Thanos and it leads to him never collecting the Stones and never executing the Snap, then we would never have a reason to travel back in time in the first place.”

Scott blinks at him, and it dawns on Thor that despite having been living in the same compound for a couple of weeks, this is the first time he’s ever spoken to the other man. A weird bubble of guilt slowly makes its way up his windpipe and it gets harder and harder to breathe.

Then Tony points a finger at him, utters an emphatic “Exactly,” and that makes breathing just a little easier.

Over the days, Thor discovers that Natasha has changed. For the better, arguably. Ever since she’d stepped into the big shoes of being the Avengers’ de facto leader, her edges are a little smoother. Not rounded, just smoother. She can still easily hold her own against him in hand-to-hand combat, but there’s a warmth in her eyes that can only come from embracing the experience of great loss. It’s a Thursday when she opens her arms for a hug, and the brightness of the sun is clear in Thor’s mind when he steps into her embrace.

When he looks at Clint, Thor sees himself. A version of himself, anyway. Clint has lost just as much as he has, a once happy family turned to nothing at the hands of the Mad Titan. He’s at a point in his life where Thor was five years ago, hell-bent on revenge and having others experience the pain he himself had to go through. He wants to tell Clint that it doesn’t work, that going for the head will not bring him solace, will not bring the people he loves back to life.

But he keeps mum, knowing from experience that Clint needs to discover that for himself.

He struggles with the idea of apologising to Nebula. Thanos took a part of Thor away, but Nebula herself has been stripped down to nothing, time and time again, at her father’s hands. Is it rude if he apologises for killing Thanos?

She’s the one who solves that particular dilemma.

“Thank you,” is what she says when she lays eyes on him, “for doing something I have always said I would do, but never had the courage to. Five years ago, I hated you for doing it, for taking the only parental figure I have known away from me, but today, I thank you. The world is better without him in it. Besides, he’s a huge asshole.”

For the first time in a long, long time, amusement tickles at his belly and Thor laughs like he means it.

 

 

 

  
It’s five in the morning and Thor has just clocked his ninth mile on the treadmill. His shirt is clinging to his frame, the fabric damp from sweat and cold from the blast of the air conditioner. There’s a bottle of unopened tequila sitting on a weight bench, right in his line of sight, and Thor stares at it as he runs.

Running is a relatively new hobby of his, one he’d picked up since his exile to Midgard. It used to be a way to work off excess energy, but Thor now runs for a different reason. The steady beat of his feet against the ground and the rush of blood through his body is enough to numb his thoughts and prevent him from reaching for the bottles – in fact, if it were physically possible to run forever, Thor wouldn’t hesitate to do just that.

He doesn’t hear the glass doors to the gym slide open, but he does see Natasha enter through the reflection in the mirrors. A woman of many talents, Natasha does a great job at pretending she doesn’t see Thor at the far end of the gym, going straight over to the mats and starting her stretches.

Thor continues running, watching as the counter slowly ticks up from nine miles to ten. Then he slows to a walk, and when he lifts his gaze once more, he meets Natasha’s through the mirrors. Sweat obscures his vision momentarily, drops running down the curve of his forehead and clinging to his lashes, and Thor whisks them away with the sharp jut of knuckles.

“You’re up early,” Natasha says, her voice clear even from across the room and through the muted hum of the treadmill.

“Sleep and I aren’t quite the best of friends,” Thor says. Words leave his throat gritty with exhaustion and lack of use. “Alcohol was the solution, but I’ve been told that I need to control myself.” He shrugs and gestures at the tequila. “I’ve been sober for a little over five hours. Which is better than the last time I tried this – I think I barely lasted three hours, that time.”

She stands, boxing gloves and wrist wraps in hand.

“You’re no less of a person just because this is the way you’ve chosen to grieve and face your failures. Not many can be like Steve, flooding his support groups with overwhelming positivity. As long as you are willing to move on one day, it doesn’t matter if all you’ve got are glass bottles right now.”

With a firm pat to the Velcro patches of her gloves, Natasha makes her way to the punching bag and sets a brutal pace, muscles tight as she beats the bag to a pulp.

“You do what you have to do, Thor. Just make sure to be there for us when we need you.”

When the treadmill comes to a stop, Thor steps off and fights through the sudden lethargy that floods his quadriceps. He stares at the bottle of tequila for a long time, the sounds of Natasha’s fists colliding with the punching bag acting as a faint soundtrack in his mind. Then, jaw clenched so tight that his teeth hurt, Thor swivels around and heads out of the gym, leaving the bottle behind.

 

 

 

  
The Quantum Tunnel is huge, taking up a fair amount of space in the hangar. Bruce looks extraordinarily pleased with their achievement, whereas Tony looks mildly bored, as if constructing a time machine is something he does once a month in the comfort of his own home.

Clint is resolute up on the platform, back straight and shoulders squared, although Thor suspects that the new tech suits have something to do with that. The mere idea of going back in time, of being able to see people that are, by all accounts, _dead_ , roils Thor’s gut. He doesn’t want to think about seeing his family again, not Frigga, definitely not Loki, and not even Odin. Once he starts entertaining the idea, he knows he won’t stop.

So he focuses on watching Clint get ready. They’re going through the details (there aren’t many) of the mission at hand and Clint is nodding like he’s heard it a thousand times before. He probably has.

“What do you think about this?”

They’ve never really interacted past brief conversations before, but Thor feels a weird kinship with Nebula. Perhaps it’s because she reminds him of Loki, what with her haughtiness and penchant for sneers and instinctive violence. Perhaps it’s because they’ve both had chances to stop Thanos and failed. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because Thanos took absolutely everything from them.

All of the above, Thor decides, and turns to look at her.

“I don’t know what I think,” he admits. “A part of me wishes it will go off without a hitch, but another part of me doesn’t want it to work at all.” A tiny bottle of scotch rests in his pocket, a blunt line of heat against his thigh. “What if we actually manage to bring everyone back and the next day there’s a whole new threat? I’ve already had to watch them die once, I don’t know if I can do it a second time.”

“Death is inevitable.” Her robotic fingers curl into a loose fist. “Even you, a god, will die. You cannot fear death, because doing so robs you of life.”

He doesn’t quite know what to say to that, but he’s saved by Bruce trundling down the steps. The rest of their ragtag group follows suit, gathering around the periphery of the Tunnel as Bruce readies the machine. A helmet forms around Clint’s head and locks in place, and Thor casts his gaze around to see that everyone’s got a glimmer of desperate hope in their eyes. They want this, Thor realises. They want this to work, _need_ it to work, because the only thing they have in mind is fixing their failure.

They’ve all failed, after all.

A few buttons are pressed and a few switches are flicked, and then Bruce is counting down the seconds. The machine fires up, Thor hears Natasha hold her breath, and then Clint is gone.

The marksman is only supposed to be gone for a moment or two, but the wait is excruciating. Thor remembers one other time in his life when the seconds ticked by this slowly – when Loki’s throat was enclosed in Thanos’ fist, his brother’s face a gut-churning grey as he forced venomous words past the encroaching line of death. Loki’s life had faded before his very eyes, trickling away like thick sand, and Thor was unable to collect the grains to put them back where they belonged.

He shakes the image clear, closes a fist around the outline of the bottle of scotch, and inhales.

Then Clint reappears out of nowhere, stumbling out of the Quantum Realm and landing on his knees. Thor sees the baseball glove in the man’s hands and something akin to begrudging relief flops around in his belly.

Impossibly, it works. The plan is going to work. They just can’t afford to fail again.

 

 

 

  
Thor hasn’t slept for over forty hours. In that time, he has rearranged his room three times, poured all of his untouched alcohol down the toilet only to regret it right after, ran for a total of twenty miles, and taken five showers. The result? His hair is the shiniest it has ever been, every muscle in his body burns with a dull ache, and sunlight no longer spills right across the pillows.

But there’s only so much he can do to kill time. When Steve calls for a meeting to discuss the next step of the plan, Thor drops the textbook on quantum physics he’s been reading in an attempt to fall asleep and bolts right out of his room. He’s the second person to arrive at the conference room after Steve himself.

“Have you been sleeping?”

Thor’s lips twitch in a pained imitation of a smile. “Not more than usual.”

Unsurprisingly, worry flickers across Steve’s face, but the door to the room slides open before the man gets a chance to speak. Thankful for the interruption, Thor escapes towards the corner of the room and sinks into an armchair, hands shoved inside the front pocket of his hoodie.

There’s a brief bout of chaos as people squabble over where they want to sit and Thor watches in mild amusement as Rocket aims his foot up Scott’s butt when the latter attempts to take a chair. Odds are Rocket won’t even end up using the chair that he had just won, but Scott doesn’t know that, does he?

Steve clears his throat and the ruckus dies down instantly, everyone’s attention shifting to the line of screens in front of them. Determining how to get to the Stones will be a challenge – they’ve only got enough Pym Particles for one round trip each and the Stones have been in many places and possessed by many various people over the years. Steve and Bruce say just as much, and Thor suddenly finds himself the centre of attention when Steve asks about the Reality Stone.

He used to adore having all eyes on him. Asgard’s golden prince, the pride and joy of an equally golden realm, a great king in the making. But now, instead of a thrill that rushes icy-hot down his spine and leaves him feeling at the top of the world, Thor only feels burdened. He has a responsibility to fulfil, however, so he clears his throat and rises to his feet.

“The Aether – or Reality Stone – has the power to bend the laws of reality according to what the user wants. It can turn anything into dark matter, is capable of sucking the life force out of humans, and can create portals into other worlds. It was in the Dark Elves’ possession, intended to be used in order to plunge the Nine Realms into eternal darkness before Asgardians took it by force. My grandfather hid the Stone someplace safe, and for a long time, people forgot about its existence.”

An image flashes across a screen and Thor stares at Jane’s pixelated face. His stomach drops – Norns, he doesn’t even know if she’s _alive_. The worst part? This is the first time since the Decimation that he’s wondered if she is.

There’s cotton in his mouth and Thor wants a drink.

“Millennia later, it resurfaced. The Aether used Jane as a host and despite bringing her to Asgard, we were unable to draw it out of her. Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves, did so later, but Loki and I managed to –” Thor stops abruptly, mind instantly going to the moment he witnessed the blade slide through Loki’s body like butter.

 _I didn’t do it for him_. Pale skin, raven hair, azure eyes.

“Thor?”

There’s cold sweat on the back of his neck. “R-right. After we retrieved the Aether from the Elves once again, we entrusted it to Collector on Knowhere in order to keep it separate from the Tesseract, which was kept in Odin’s vaults. After that, well, you know where it went.”

A few nods, murmurs, and notes being jotted down.

Then finally, blessedly, everyone turns away from Thor. He reclaims his seat before his knees are able to give way.

 

 

 

  
It’s been a few hours since Thor found out that he’d been assigned to retrieve the Reality Stone from Asgard. Not that it came as a surprise, because who else would Steve send to Asgard if not the Asgardian?

They’re leaving when dawn breaks, and despite the silence that rings loud throughout the Facility, no one is asleep. Everyone is counting down the hours and minutes until they’re embarking on a mission that they cannot fail, either holed up in their rooms or occupying their minds with something else.

Thor is doing the latter, running laps around the compound. He’s swathed in the darkness of the night, safe and alone, trying to think only of the rhythm of his feet. It works, but for a handful of minutes.

Ten years typically isn’t a long time for someone like Thor, not when he’s lived for over a millennium. But so much has happened over the last decade that it felt like a lifetime lived and lost.

A mere ten years ago, Thor had a family. A fractured one, and one about to be broken even more, but a family nonetheless. Will he be able to see Frigga again? The possibility of it sends an ache radiating through him, quiet and bone-deep, a yearning he thought to be lost. His mother is still everything to him, a figure of guidance, wise and patient and loving. She loved him as her son, not as the future king or a great warrior, and Thor had the freedom to be anything he wanted to be around her. Maybe he’ll take a few minutes to track her down, just to see her from across the palace halls. Rocket wouldn’t mind, Thor thinks.

He stops for breath, shoulders hitting the rough surface of a tree’s bark; now that he’s no longer moving, the thoughts come back at full force.

Back then, he’d been a mess of emotions and he still remembers every single of one them – frustration at Odin for his lack of leniency, anger at Loki for his crimes, and disappointment over the distance between himself and Jane. He hated having to deal with this amalgamation of feelings, hated the fact that nothing seemed to be going his way.

Now he’d give anything to relive that time, but despite what Loki used to say, Thor doesn’t always get what he wants.

In just a few hours he’ll be back in Asgard, painfully aware that everyone he loves is alive and within reach. But he can’t stay. And by the gods, does he want to stay.

 

 

 

  
Everyone is practically itching to get started on their respective missions in the wake of Steve’s speech – the man really hasn’t lost his touch.

Thor, rendered silent from both lack of sleep and the immense reality of what’s about to happen, casts his gaze around the circle he’s in. His friends, his allies, people he’d trust with his life and who have lost just as much as he has. Clint and Rocket are bickering, Nebula is rubbing idly at a smudge of grease on her finger, and Scott looks like he’s about ready to pee his pants. Again.

Then Bruce announces that the machine’s all ready, and Natasha’s face lights up with an excited grin. All bright and lovely, a sight that’s been hard to come across in recent years, and Thor feels a sudden surge of affection for her. Their eyes meet and Thor can’t help but give her a small smile in return.

“See you in a minute!”

Helmets snap on, the machine whirs to life, and the next thing Thor knows, he’s back on Asgard.

 

 

 

  
Everything looks perfect. Gleaming, elaborate buildings and intricate spires, a city of gold and prosperity, standing proud and untouched by Ragnarök. Every nook and cranny of the Palace is still ingrained in Thor’s mind, and as he walks through the halls, the memories resurface like buoys in the sea.

He passes spots where he and Sif squeezed into in order to hide from their tutors as kids, secret pathways to the kitchens that he and Volstagg would use to smuggle food (and mead), and quiet gardens where he’d lie in the grass with a young Loki pressed up against his side.

Rocket trails after him, his beady eyes opened wide as he takes in Asgard at its finest, likely salivating over all the riches he knows is within his reach.

“You _lived_ here?”

“This… yes, this was my home,” Thor answers, fingertips trailing over the rough stone of the walls.

Thor refuses to stray from the mission, making a beeline for the room that Jane is in. He falters when he passes by the corridor that leads out to the training grounds, but he grits his teeth and presses on.

They cut through the Palace quickly, keeping to the shadows and stopping whenever they pick up on footsteps. Thor’s so focused on getting them to where they need to be that it takes him far too long to realise where they’ve ended up.

Cutting through the dungeons is the quickest way to get to the royal chambers, a path that takes them right past Loki’s cell. Standing just beyond the threshold, Thor is painfully aware of the low hiss the doors make when they shut behind him.

His pulse speeds up and cold sweat prickles at his skin.

“Hey, big guy, we gotta –”

“Just – give me a moment,” Thor whispers, eyes fixated on the fourth cell to the left.

He can feel his heart in his throat.

It takes him barely twenty steps to reach Loki’s cell. With unshed tears in his eyes, Thor steps out of the shadows and up to the spelled walls, glowing faintly with the magic of Asgard’s best sorcerers. Loki’s there, lying on the bed, tossing an empty cup in the air over and over again. The cloud of boredom and bitterness surrounding his brother is so achingly familiar that the tears spill over and Loki’s name slips from his lips.

The cup lands with a muted smack against the palm of Loki’s hand.

“Oh,” Loki sneers with barely a glance in Thor’s direction. He resumes the tossing of his cup. “It’s you. Have you come to gloat over my –”

“Loki.” _Please_.

There must be something in his voice that catches Loki’s attention because the sorcerer sits up and swivels around. The cup lies forgotten on the mattress.

“Loki,” Thor repeats, and the tears are flowing freely now. Rocket is all but kicking at his shins in an attempt to get him going again, but Thor pays the creature no mind.

The confusion is clear on Loki’s face and Thor drinks it in. Understandable, Thor thinks, because too many things have happened since this time in history for him to remain the same man he once was. Loki sees that instantly.

While his brother tries to sort out his thoughts, Thor takes the time to sear the sight of his brother, alive and breathing, perfect and whole, behind his lids.

“You’re not the Thor I know,” Loki finally says, a faint crease between his brows. “Who are you?”

He presses a shaking palm to the barrier and feels magic thrumming under his touch. Thor slides his hand closer to Loki’s face. “I’m still the Thor you know,” he says quietly. “Just a little wiser.”

“Wiser,” Loki repeats flatly. There’s a snarky comment right on the tip of his tongue, but Loki is unnerved enough by the situation to keep it there.

Thor hums, his fingers hovering right above the sharp cut of Loki’s jaw. Eyes, bottle-green in the light, follow the movement.

“Wiser,” Thor affirms. He wishes he could trace the line of Loki’s cheekbone, the slope of his nose, the thin curve of his lips. “I’ve learned many things, brother, things I wish I knew and told you when I had the chance.”

“Thor,” Loki says, quiet now. “What exactly are you talking about?”

A faint cough reaches Thor’s ears and he knows he simply cannot linger any longer.

“You _must_ know, Loki,” Thor says, dragging the back of his other hand across his cheek. Moisture collects on his skin and the crease between Loki’s brows deepens. “You must know how much I love you, and that I will never stop loving you. I know I have never told you that enough, but some part of you must know, Lo.”

“I –” A noise of frustration rumbles low in Loki’s throat. “Thor, I don’t quite know what game you’re playing at, but –”

“It’s no game, Loki. I just need you to know that.”

His thumb arcs across Loki’s cheek, touching magic instead of skin.

Loki doesn’t answer, and Thor takes a deep breath before dropping his hand.

“I’m sorry, Loki. For everything.”

 

 

 

  
His tears have barely dried when a door opens and sends both him and Rocket scrambling for cover behind a pillar. Multiple sets of footsteps echo through the hall, soon accompanied by soft voices.

One, in particular, has Thor’s lungs seizing.

Rocket is already peering around the pillar, little paws set against the stone to support himself.

“Who’s the fancy broad?”

“My mother.” Thor drags his bottom lip through his teeth. “I think she dies today.”

“Oh,” Rocket utters. “That’s today?”

He thinks of finding his mother in a pool of her own blood and something inside him snaps.

“I can’t do this,” he blurts, and promptly turns on his heel, blindly making his way deeper into the Palace as tears once again blur his vision. Rocket calls out to him, as loudly as he can under the circumstances, but Thor pays him no mind.

He walks until he finds himself in Frigga’s personal garden. There, he stops before a bed of roses, some blood red and others almost crystalline in their sparkle, and looks over his shoulder to see his mother.

“You are not the Thor I know at all,” Frigga says, a gentle smile on her face. “Are you?” Her words echo those of Loki’s earlier and Thor wants to rejoice at how similar they really are. Instead, all he can do is stare at his mother, hours away from her death, and try to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“Would you believe me if I said that I was?”

“I would,” Frigga nods. “You are, after all, my son. But the future has changed you; it hasn’t been kind to you, has it?”

A warm palm cups his jaw, slender fingers running along the thin, silvery lines of his battle scars.

“I never said I was from the future,” Thor mumbles, shutting his eyes in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. Norns, it’s been so long since he’s felt his mother’s touch.

“I was raised by witches, boy. I see with more than eyes, and you know that.”

Thor huffs out a laugh and all but falls into his mother’s arms. “I need to talk to you, Mum.”

A soft kiss to his temple, and then: “We can talk.”

 

 

 

  
He tells Frigga about Thanos and his quest for the Infinity Stones, managing to keep his voice even at the beginning, only for it to start breaking up when he gets to Loki’s murder.

“I couldn’t do anything, Mum; he tried to trick his way through it, tried to fool the Mad Titan just to save me. And I couldn’t save him, couldn’t do the one thing I have always told myself to do – protect him. I watched him die, Mother, and I couldn’t even tell him I loved him before he died.”

It’s getting harder to breathe, the need for air and the need to _get it out_ struggling for priority.

Frigga pulls him close to her chest, pillows his head on her shoulder and shushes him, fingers threading ever-so-gently through his hair.

“He knows, Thor. As much as he says he doesn’t, as much as he’s prickly and insists that affection is weak, he loves you too.”

A splitting pain radiates up to his brain stem and settles behind his eyes, pulsing against his temples. “I failed to avenge his death,” he mumbles into the fabric of Frigga’s dress. “I caused the deaths of billions, Mother. So what if I killed him after? So what if his head was to the left and his body to the right? I was too late. I was just standing there. Some idiot with an axe.”

Strong hands cradle his face and Thor finds himself staring right into his mother’s eyes. “You are no idiot. You’re my son, and you were raised by the wisest person in Asgard. Me, mind you, not your father. Idiot? Definitely not. Did you fail? Yes.”

Thor winces. Frigga thumbs the frown lines and tears away.

“But you know what that makes you? Just like everyone else.”

“Which is a failure in and of itself, isn’t it? I’m not supposed to be like everyone else.”

“Everyone fails at being who they’re supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person is how well they succeed at being who they are. And you are good, Thor. Regardless of your failures, you are _good_. Would Loki give up his own life to save someone he deems unworthy?”

At that, Thor lets out a wet chuckle. “No, he wouldn’t.”

Frigga kisses him on the forehead and holds him close.

“I’ve really missed you, Mum.”

There’s a brief lull of silence, one they spend simply holding each other, a broken son in his mother’s safe embrace. Then Thor hears a muted thud, and Rocket comes barging into the room, the Aether safely extracted and gripped in his paw.

Right, they’re on a mission.

“You must be Thor’s mother,” Rocket pants, clutching the Aether to his chest. “Uh, nice to meet you?” He turns to Thor expectantly. “I got the thing. Time to go, big guy.”

“G-go? No, wait,” he turns to Frigga, “I still have to tell you something.”

But Frigga shakes her head and squeezes Thor’s hand. “No, honey. You don’t.”

“It’s important; it’s about your future.”

“You’re here to fix _your_ future, Thor. Not mine. My future is as it should be.”

He wants to tell her, wants to warn her, wants to tuck her away and keep her safe. But he knows she’s right. She’s always right.

“I wish,” he says, brushing the inside of her wrist with his thumb, “that we had more time.”

“As do I, but this is already a great gift.” She smiles at him, eyes full of affection, and Thor feels the telltale pinprick of tears once more. “Remember, be the man you’re meant to be. You will always be worthy.”

She lets his hands go, but Thor sees her incline her head towards the open window.

“Come on, we gotta go.”

“... Wait,” Thor whispers, and holds out his hand. He can feel it shaking, but Frigga’s expression is calm and oddly proud, and Thor doesn't look away from her.

“Wh-what am I looking at?”

Frigga glances over at Rocket and winks. “Sometimes, it can take a while.”

Thor hears it before he sees it. Mjölnir zips through the air, the whistle of its flight music to Thor’s ears. Stormbreaker has been a comfort, but nothing will ever replace Mjölnir in his heart.

When his fingers close around its hilt and he feels leather, weathered and worn, he laughs.

“I’m still worthy,” he says, turning to his mother. “I’m still –”

“ _Worthy_ ,” she finishes for him. “Go now, son. And never doubt my words.”

He tries to commit this moment to memory. “I love you.”

The last thing Thor sees before he disappears into the Quantum Realm is his mother, lips forming the words _I love you too._

 

 

 

  
The loss of Natasha eclipses the triumph of obtaining all the Infinity Stones.

Bruce refuses to accept it, breaking everything in his way and bellowing at those that try to comfort him. Everyone feels caught between a rock and a hard place – they’ve all lost people they loved, and while they’re more than aware of the fact that nothing anyone says will help, they know that Bruce shouldn’t be handling it alone.

Things aren’t easy for Clint either. Thor finds him out by the lake one evening, toying with an arrow in his hands as he stares blankly out at over the water.

“You can’t beat yourself up over it,” Thor says, settling down next to him. He picks up a pebble, rolls it between his palms, and sends it skipping across the surface of the lake. After four skips, it sinks.

Clint’s hackles rise instantly. “You don’t know –”

“But I do know,” Thor interrupts. “I know because Loki died trying to keep me from dying. And what did I do? I was useless, bound and gagged and on my knees. He died trying to save a useless god. Now, I deal with that guilt every single day and dream of his face every single night. I hear the bones of his neck shatter, over and over again.”

Knuckles deathly pale around the shaft of the arrow, Clint lets out a shuddering breath and says, “How do you get past that?”

Well that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?

“You need to forgive yourself.” The words surprise Thor himself, because the mere thought of admitting that Loki’s death isn’t his fault is something he hasn’t been able to stomach.

“Have you?”

“No,” Thor admits. “But I’d like to think I’ll get there.”

They sit in silence for minutes, Clint drawing random patterns into the soil with the tip of his arrow as Thor continues skipping stones.

“She did it for you, you know,” Thor says eventually. “For us, because she loves us. We have to carry that weight on our shoulders, but with our heads held high. She deserves that much.”

 

 

 

  
They hold a funeral for her after three days, once Bruce has wrapped his mind around the fact that she’s truly gone and nothing can bring her back. He places Natasha’s ballet shoes into a simple, black velvet box, wrapping the ribbons carefully into a bow before placing the lid over it.

With Clint right by his side, Bruce carries the box and walks up to the edge of the river. The box is set onto a wreath of red and black roses and Clint nudges it off the bank, waiting until it’s far enough from them before firing a flare arrow into the air. It arcs almost poetically and lands amidst the flowers, lighting the blooms up instantly.

“You should say goodbye to Loki, too.”

Thor, startled, nearly slips on the rocks. “What?”

Clint gestures to the burning wreath, now a small speck in the distance. His eyes are red-rimmed but he looks calm.

“You never gave Loki a funeral, did you?”

A shiver runs down Thor’s spine and he hurries to look away, tasting bile on his tongue. “No,” he says thickly. “I did not.”

“It’s never too late.”


	2. Chapter 2

Thor stares at the gauntlet, at the stones fitted perfectly into the nanotech. It’s right there in front of him, tangible and ready to be used, and yet Thor still struggles to wrap his mind around the fact that they did it.

Admittedly, they still have to undo what Thanos did, but snapping their own fingers seems a lot less daunting than everything they’ve done to get to this point.

Tony’s question manages to worm its way through his thoughts, gripping Thor’s attention.

“I’ll do it,” he says immediately. Everyone looks over at him with varying degrees of shock. _Huh_ , Thor thinks absently, eyes roving over the incredulous faces of his teammates, _where’s Nebula?_

Scott is the first one to speak. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”

He makes a beeline for the gauntlet, only to make it two steps before Tony’s in front of him, hands pressed against his chest. “Wait wait wait, Thor, just – _wait_. We haven’t decided who’s gonna put the gauntlet on.”

Confused, Thor attempts to reach past Tony’s bulk and grab the gauntlet. “It makes sense that it’s me, doesn’t it? I’m an actual god.”

“I think we should at least discuss it,” Scott mumbles.

Steve promptly voices his agreement. “He’s right. You’ve seen what using the Stones did to someone like Thanos. You might be a god, Thor, but you’re not immortal.”

“You can discuss it all you want,” Thor shrugs, “but discussing it isn’t going to bring anyone back. Just let me do it; I don’t care if I lose an arm or a leg or –”

“Thor –”

“I need to do this, Tony,” Thor interrupts quietly. “Let me do it.”

“No.” Tony’s voice is firm and Thor can’t help the dejected sigh that slips out. “Regardless of the fact that that glove is channelling enough energy to light up a continent, I’m not letting you risk your life just because you have a twisted need to prove something to yourself.”

“He’s right,” Bruce chimes in. “You’re strong as hell, Thor, but you can’t cheat death with strength.” With a forceful clear of his throat, Bruce stands and strides over to the gauntlet. “So, it has to be me. I have the highest chance of surviving.”

“How do you know you will?”

Bruce’s lips twist in a weird grimace. “I don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma. Odds are on my side, I guess.”

He picks up the gauntlet and holds it gingerly, as if the weight of the world is in his hand. In a way, Thor supposes it is.

“Well,” Bruce says, moving his right hand closer to the opening of the gauntlet. Thor stares as the piece of nanotech reshapes itself to fit Bruce’s larger-than-life fist, slowly but steadily fitting over the bump of knuckles and up the expanding column of his forearm. Just before it fully conforms to the shape of Bruce’s fist, it stops.

“Ready?”

Thor, a little indignant that Tony doesn’t even try to talk Bruce down from doing it, shifts away and plants himself in front of Rocket. Whatever, if Bruce can’t handle it, he’ll just take over. That’s fair, right?

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Everyone moves to the outer edges of the room – Tony and Rhodey suit up, Steve picks up his shield, Clint hides behind Tony’s, and Thor finds himself taking on the role of Rocket’s personal _human_ shield.

He tosses his friend a flat look over his shoulder, one that Rocket returns with complete innocence. With another sigh, Thor summons both Mjölnir and Stormbreaker; he might very well need them both.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favour and activate Protocol 8.”

“Yes, boss.”

The Facility goes on lockdown and Thor takes a breath.

“Here goes nothing,” Bruce mutters, and slides the gauntlet the rest of the way on.

The power surge overwhelms Bruce instantly, a scream ripping out of his throat as his knees hit the floor with a heavy thud.

“Take it off,” Thor demands, already taking a step forward. “Banner –”

“Wait a moment, Thor. Bruce?”

“Talk to me, Banner.”

Bruce grunts, body visibly trembling with the strength needed to keep the Stones’ power under control. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” Muscles drawn tight and jaw clenched, Bruce lifts his hand. No one breathes, all eyes fixed on the movement of Bruce’s middle finger and thumb.

Then, in the time it takes for a heart to beat once, Bruce snaps his fingers.

He collapses right after, the floor trembling with his deadweight, and the gauntlet slides off his arm. Clint kicks it aside and Steve darts over to heft Bruce up, but Tony stops him. There’s talking, something spraying, followed by more talking, but Thor pays them no mind. He stares at the gauntlet, at all that power lying innocently on the floor, and wonders if he could put it on and undo the other deaths that Thanos had caused.

He’s just about to walk over to it when a phone rings.

“Guys, I think it worked!”

Thor turns around to look at Scott and is promptly blasted right off his feet, the literal walls around him crumbling to dust. He falls into a seemingly endless pit, too stunned and disoriented to call for his weapons, and blacks out the second his back finally collides with something solid.

 

 

 

  
Pain throbs deep and heavy in his skull and the roar of noise all around him does not help whatsoever. There are shouts, there are explosions, and there is the rush of blood in his ears. Thor blinks away the spots in his vision and staggers to his feet, grunting when he knocks his forehead into a huge block of concrete.

Everything is ablaze and in ruins. He can’t see anyone around him, and when he tries to contact the others through their comms, he finds that his has been damaged beyond repair. Frantic with worry, Thor picks his way through the rubble, careful not to dislodge pieces that might be holding up what’s left of the structure.

“Stark? Cap?” It’s dark outside, the sheer amount of smoke and fine particles of debris blocking out the sunlight. “Shit,” he mutters, stumbling across a piece of machinery that he recognises as Tony’s. “Banner!”

He doesn’t stop moving until he finds a clearing, running the back of his clammy hand across his eyes in a futile attempt to wipe away the dirt and grime. There, sat on a boulder in the middle of the scorched land, sits Thanos. Behind him stands his vast army, clearly eager to cause as much destruction as they can.

Thor doesn’t even want to think about how he got here. He can’t, not when he’s once again faced with the source of his nightmares, very much alive and breathing.

Calling out for Mjölnir and Stormbreaker, Thor guides them through the wreckage and into his hands while below, Thanos watches with a smile.

He stands there for what feels like hours, weapons in his hands as he stares down at Thanos. From this distance, the Titan is a mere speck of purple, seemingly unthreatening and harmless. Thor knows better.

Something moves behind him and Thor hears footsteps.

“What’s he been doing?”

A shrug, then with grit in his voice, Thor says, “Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, at least he doesn’t have the gauntlet,” Steve observes.

Tony waves a hand at the mess around them. “It’s probably buried a hundred feet under all of this. Let’s hope that gives us enough time.”

“Yes,” Thor says, pulling his shoulders back and gripping his weapons more firmly. “Hopefully enough for us to kill him properly this time.”

Lightning sparks along his skin, pulling the fine hairs on his neck to attention. A bolt shoots up into the sky and turns everything a frosty shade of blue – it reminds Thor of Loki.

He’s the first one to move, gliding down to the earth with Tony behind him and Steve taking the long way. Thanos stands to meet them, a speech ready to leave his lips that Thor plans on ignoring. It matters not what the Mad Titan has to say, after all, not when Thor doesn’t plan on letting him live.

 

 

 

  
Blood obscures his vision, thick and sluggish from where it dribbles out of a wound near his temple. Thor can taste the metallic tinge of it, smeared across his lips, and he can smell it in the air.

Thanos looms over him with a satisfied glint in his eyes and Thor so desperately wants to dig them out of their sockets with his bare fingers. But it takes all of his energy just to keep the sharp edge of Stormbreaker’s blade from piercing through his sternum, muscles trembling and joints screaming.

“Was it worth it,” Thanos murmurs, “doing all of this just to realise that I am, after all, inevitable?”

Something inside Thor gives out at that possibility. His grip slips, Stormbreaker breaks through the top layer of his armour, and he resigns himself to the fact that this is how he will finally die.

Perhaps it’s a mercy, not being able to live in a world tainted by Thanos’ hands. Comforted by that thought, Thor is just about to relinquish his grip on the weapon when a wave of pale green light sweeps over the battlefield. Thor feels the recognisable ripple of a force field washing over his frame, and the next thing he knows, Stormbreaker is lying by his side and Thanos is crashing into the very boulder he was sitting on not long ago.

“ _No one,_ ” growls an eerily familiar voice, “gets to beat my brother up except _me_.”

The green glows brighter and Thor scrambles to his feet just in time to see Loki flicker into view, spheres of concentrated energy in the curves of his palms. His hair, now long enough to reach the middle of his back, is a mess and his lips are pale and cracked, but his eyes are alight with such power that it rips Thor’s breath right out of his lungs.

“L-Loki?” The word comes out as a whisper, lost to the wind and the sounds of battle.

Lips curling into a snarl, Loki surges forward, blasting Thanos with sphere after sphere of raw energy until the Titan has gorged a crater through the ground with his body. Thor has never seen his brother like this, never this unleashed, not even when their relationship was at its most broken. Seiðr spills forth from the sorcerer, thick and concentrated, the taste of his magic heavenly on Thor’s tongue.

“Loki,” he repeats. The syllables come out a little stronger this time but Loki doesn’t seem to hear him, too focused on battling his personal reaper.

There’s movement to his left and Thor turns to see Steve approaching, face streaked with dirt and his shield broken in half. Wait, is that –?

“Mjölnir?”

Steve glances down at his right hand. “Oh, yeah,” he says. He holds it out to Thor, but Thor gestures for him to keep it. If he’s worthy, he deserves to wield it, as simple as that. “Uh, I was gonna get Thanos off you and it just flew into my hand? Anyway, before I could help, well…” He gestures to Loki and coughs. “Did you know?”

“That he was –” Thor inhales shakily. “No.”

Up in the air, Loki paints a terrifying image, hair and robes whipping in the wind caused by the expulsion of his magic, movements lightning quick.

Throughout the assault, Thanos hasn’t once managed to grapple back to even ground.

But Thor knows better. Seiðr will inevitably run out, and once it does, Loki will be horribly vulnerable. So he swipes blood off the corner of his mouth and summons Stormbreaker, letting the ground fall away from his feet as he heads up towards his brother.

It takes mere seconds to get to Loki’s side; it’s amazing how such little time can mean so much.

“Lo?”

Loki’s jaw clenches, eyes bloodshot from exertion or exhaustion – likely both. “Not now, Thor.”

His name coming from Loki’s mouth is something he never thought he could hear again. His eyes prickle and his throat clogs up, but he pushes past the need to cry just to say: “Loki, please.”

Loki’s brow furrows and Thor realises with a start that Loki is tearing up, too. “ _Thor_ ,” he tries again, voice cracking. Thor’s heart leaps. “I’m _busy_.” As if to further emphasise his point, Loki conjures up a larger sphere and tosses that down in Thanos' general vicinity. A tear slips free.

“Loki, you’ll drain yourself at this rate.”

“He took my life with his bare hands,” Loki says, words short and clipped and weighted with emotion. “He took me from –” A dry sob, then: “he took me from you. You were the only one I had left and he _took_ me –”

A scream claws it way out of Loki’s throat, gut-wrenching and wretched, and seiðr flares out of him like he’s the core of a dying star. He sees the tension in Loki’s back snap, and when Loki falls towards him, Thor is there to catch him around the waist.

“He took me from you,” Thor hears, soft and tired in his ear, and the sky lights up with those five words.

 

 

 

  
He can’t rein it in, can’t keep the lightning contained, not when he’s finally got Loki in his arms again. There’s a storm brewing overhead, but Thor knows that the wetness on his face isn’t from the thunderclouds.

“I can’t do this right now,” Loki mumbles, trying to pull away from Thor’s grasp and simultaneously press closer at the same time. “We need to get back down there and kill him, Thor. He’s not dead yet; we need to kill him. We need to –”

Loki is trembling, a ball of frenetic energy that Thor suspects he can’t quite tamp down, so he does the one thing he knows will shut off Loki’s ability to think.

The storm rages around them, rain soaking them through the bone, and Thor slides one hand up through water sluicing down the skin pulled taut around Loki’s tense neck to cup his jaw.

Loki’s still mumbling to himself, but his eyes instantly snap to Thor’s when the edge of Thor’s thumb brushes the subtle swell of his lower lip. Another caress and Loki stops talking. Thor takes in the curl of his lashes, weighted with raindrops, the flecks of green in his irises, the sharp bridge of his nose… It’s without a single ounce of hesitation that he leans in and kisses Loki, the touch of their lips gentle but firm.

Surprisingly, Loki doesn’t shove him away. He doesn’t kiss back either, but Thor considers it a definite win, considering the fact that this is _them_ he’s talking about.

‘Loki, you know I –”

“You love me,” Loki croaks. He presses their foreheads together. “Yes, I know.”

The rain stops and one last, fat bolt of lightning splits the sky in two when Thor laughs, full-bellied and pure. This, he thinks, is his rebirth.

 

 

 

  
“I thought that asshole killed you,” Tony exclaims, squelching through the mud in his hurry to get to them. He gestures at Thanos; the Titan had just climbed out of the crater Loki put him in, looking battered, bruised, and bloodied. The sight sends a primal thrill right through Thor.

Loki tosses his hair over one shoulder and crooks a brow. With the help of a simple glamour spell, he’s sleek and polished once more, eyes dry and skin smooth. “Oh, did I not tell you? I’ve had my name removed from the books of Hel.” He turns back to Thanos and sneers. “He can kill me, many times even, but he cannot have my death.”

“Wait, you can _do_ that?”

The God of Mischief sniffs delicately. “Of course. I am a trickster, after all.”

Tony turns to Thor. “Did you know? This is why he’s always around to wreak havoc on our planet!”

“I knew he must have had something up his sleeve, but this is the first time I am learning of this,” Thor says. “My brother does what he wants – I have little to no say over his choices nor does he deign to inform me of most of them.”

A ghost of a smirk flits across Loki’s face and Thor feels a bubble of love explode in his chest. Across the battlefield, Thanos draws up to his full height and the Black Order descends from the _Sanctuary II._

“Perhaps we can discuss this later?” Steve interjects. “We do have a battle to fight, after all. I am assuming, Loki, that you will be –”

“Do not assume anything when it comes to me, mortal. I fight only for myself,” Loki replies, seiðr flowing forth once more. He waves a hand over Steve’s broken shield and returns it to his former glory. Steve blinks down at it, at a loss for words. “And sometimes for my brother. But today, yes, I will fight for you.”

They watch in silence as the rest of Thanos’ vast army appears. Even with Loki’s help, facing hundreds of enemies with just a handful of them seems...

“I will fight for you,” Loki repeats, “and so will they.”

“What? Who will –”

Steve’s sentence is cut off by a familiar orange glow.

Seeing hundreds of their friends and allies step out of dozens of Sling Ring portals is surreal, to say the very least. Sam soars high over them, letting out a joyful whoop that has Steve breaking out into incredulous laughter. There’s T’Challa, leading his vast army with two of the most important women in his life by his side; Wanda with five years’ worth of vengeance clear in her eyes; the oh-so-young Peter Parker with determination and nervousness warring for a spot on his face.

The Valkyrie, reunited with her winged stallion, leads what’s left of the Asgardian army. She spots them through the crowd, the corner of her mouth tipping up into a smile when she lays eyes on Loki.

“My princes,” she drawls, “nice seeing the both of you here.”

She doesn’t quite manage to hide her surprise, however, and Thor steps a little closer to Loki just to reassure himself that he is indeed still there. Loki doesn’t move away from him, even going so far as to let Thor curl an arm around his waist.

“Yes, well,” Loki sniffs. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

It’s remarkable, how much Loki’s presence charges up Thor’s resolve to win. With Stormbreaker lighting up in his hand, he charges forth and flattens out dozens of Chitauri and Outriders with one strike, highly aware of Loki right behind him watching his back.

 _This_ is the joy of battle, Thor realises. It’s not the goal of victory nor the bloodshed that gets his blood singing; instead, it’s the experience of working side by side with Loki to achieve both that he revels in. Ever since they were a few hundred years old, they’ve been fighting battles together, Loki leaving the dirty work to Thor while he focuses on keeping his people safe from threats unseen to everyone but him.

It’s what they did best and it’s what they turn to now.

Loki keeps a force field around Thor as they advance, lazily flinging seiðr at enemies that try to flank them. Meanwhile, lightning from Thor washes harmlessly over Loki, charring the earth and turning enemies around them to soot. It’s effortless, the way they work together, and for a moment, they’re untouchable.

Then, refusing to fall to Wanda, Thanos orders his warship to rain hell upon them all. It takes all of Loki’s power to expand the force field to cover those that do not have the protection of a Masters’ shield; choosing who the force field protects expends extra seiðr, and coupled with his duel with Thanos from earlier, Loki feels the strain instantly.

“Loki,” Thor breathes, hurrying over to Loki’s side.

“Find a way,” Loki grunts, a vein straining against the slim column of his throat. “Find a way to stop this, Thor. I can’t hold this up for much longer.”

Thor’s just about to channel as much lightning as he can to strike the warship down, but Carol beats him to it, crashing headfirst into the ship with the brightness of a comet and triggering a chain of explosions.

“Norns, who _is_ that?”

“Lady Carol,” Thor answers after a beat. “I’ll introduce you after, I think you’ll like her.”

 

 

 

  
Held back by Glaive and Midnight, Thor can only watch from afar as Thanos destroys the Quantum Tunnel. Carol’s tossed aside like a ragdoll, the gauntlet tumbling from her grasp and bouncing off a nearby rock.

Panic and fear rise up like bile in his mouth. When Thanos spots the gauntlet and begins making his way over to it, pain lacing his features with every step, he hears Loki’s strained _no!_ coming from his left. Can Loki come back from this death? Thor has to wonder. If Thanos wipes out all traces of Loki’s existence, will the existence of his arrangement with Hel also vanish?

Thor doesn’t mind dying himself, but he doesn’t know which he would prefer – for Loki to live on without him, or for Loki to join him in Valhalla.

When he chances a look over his shoulder, swinging blindly with Stormbreaker and hoping it fends off Thanos’ children, he sees Loki looking right back at him.

 _I won’t be able to go with you_ , he hears in his mind, Loki’s answer to his unspoken question streaked with anguish. _Don’t let him take you away from me again, Thor, please. Don’t let him._

“I won’t, Lo. I promise.”

Drawing on nothing but his willpower, Thor fights his way through, finally managing to land a lethal blow through Midnight’s torso. When she collapses, Glaive moves to catch her, and Thor takes the opportunity to end him with a swing of Stormbreaker’s blade.

In the next instant, Thor’s airborne and bulleting straight for Thanos, who by now is only mere feet away from the gauntlet.

“Thor! Heads up!”

He catches Mjölnir by the hilt, directing both weapons towards Thanos and summoning enough lightning to have Thanos stumbling back. Carol jumps at the chance, flying back into the fray and straight for Thanos’ gut. They struggle to gain the upper hand over the other, trading punches that would’ve instantly killed any regular human.

But thanks to his sheer bulk, Thanos slowly bullies his way closer to the gauntlet, Carol able to fend off his blows but unable to push him away. Thor, ripped out of the air by a frantic Ebony Maw and trapped against a block of cement, watches in terror as Thanos inches ever closer to the gauntlet.

With a great swing, Thanos dislodges Carol from his arm and closes the distance between himself and the gauntlet in several long strides. He’s just about to slide it on when a flash of red barrels into him. Tony, despite his genius and his nanotech suit, only succeeds in pulling a grunt out of Thanos.

But it’s enough, Thor discovers, when Thanos kicks Tony aside and makes to raise his gauntleted arm once more. It’s enough, because it is Tony’s genius and his nanotech suit that succeed in stealing the Stones from right underneath Thanos’ nose.

“I’d ask you to remember me,” Tony quips, fluttering his fingers. The Stones glimmer in the light and Thanos looks on in horror. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to.” With that, Tony snaps his fingers.

 

 

 

  
The kid’s crying – bawling his heart out, really – and Pepper is doing her best to hold it together.

“It’s okay, Tony.” She thumbs at his cheek, dotted with stubble. “We’re gonna be okay.”

Tony gives her a wobbly smile. He loves her so much, it’s plain to see. Thor momentarily wonders if his own face carries the same expression when he looks at his brother.

“You can –”

“Excuse me.” Loki’s voice cuts sharply through and everyone instantly moves aside to let him through. He kneels next to Tony, his face pale but otherwise unharmed. He licks his lips and swallows. “Lady Pepper; may I?”

Bemused, Pepper nods and Loki raises his hands, eyes fluttering shut as he focuses on what’s left of his seiðr. A warm light floods out of his fingertips, the brightest of it concentrated on Tony’s mortal injury.

"Thor? Remove the Stones from the gauntlet, please."

Thor moves to do just that, quietly settling down next to Loki in order to pry the Stones free. He passes them over to Steve, who immediately pockets them and runs the flat of his palm down his thigh. The good Captain looks a little green, likely too aware of the Stones’ weight in his pocket, but Thor can’t blame him whatsoever.

As he stands, Thor bends to drop a kiss on the crown of Loki’s head.

The light from Loki’s healing spell flares brighter and Thor smiles.

 

 

 

  
Loki’s been asleep for three straight days now. He’d done all he could to keep Tony alive, using up every bit of seiðr in his system until it ran out and he collapsed into Thor’s waiting arms, unconscious from sheer exhaustion.

Both of them were brought to Wakanda, while several of the Avengers chose to stay behind in order to clean up what’s left of the Facility. Thor had offered, albeit a little reluctantly, to stay and help, but Steve shot it down instantly.

“Don’t be silly,” Steve said. “Go with Loki. If you need us, you know where to find us.”

Stephen himself created the portal that led them to Wakanda. Before Thor could step through with Loki in his arms, he set a hand on Thor’s shoulder and said, “I would very much appreciate it if you could tell your brother that he is indeed a formidable sorcerer.”

After promising to do so, Stephen let him go.

“He’s right, you know,” said Pepper. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, but there’s hope in the gentle curve of her smile. “I would love to thank him when he wakes.”

It took a bit of adjusting – Loki may have a slender frame, but he _is_ a Frost Giant after all –, but Thor freed up enough space in the crook of his elbow for Pepper to slip a hand through. Together, they followed the stretcher that held Tony, allowing the soft chatter of the Wakandans to wash over them like a salve.

While Loki recuperated, Shuri and Bruce worked through the nights to find a way to heal Tony. Along with Thor and Pepper keeping vigil over the beds of their respective loved ones, the six of them barely left the lab, only stepping out for food and a shower.

On the fourth day, Loki opens his eyes.

Thor, dozing on a chair by his bedside, hears the cough first. He wakes instantly, nearly falling off the too-small chair in his haste to check on Loki.

“Loki?”

It’s barely dawn, streaks of purplish gold slipping into the lab through gaps in the blinds. Everyone else is asleep, Bruce snoring heavily into an expensive piece of equipment – if he drools onto it, Shuri’s going to blast his ass out a window the second she finds out.

“Water,” Loki rasps, hair a knotted mess over his pillow.

Thor gets a glass for him immediately, cradling Loki’s head as he drinks. He drains the glass in seconds, taking a shaky breath when Thor moves to refill it.

“Where are we?” Loki asks between mouthfuls.

“Wakanda,” Thor answers. “Home of the Black Panther.”

“Mm. Sounds… captivating.” His eyelids are already fluttering shut once more and Thor sets the glass aside to run tender hands over the sharp angles of Loki’s face. Loki sighs at the touch, lashes trembling over the shadows below his eyes, and Thor leans in to press a kiss to his forehead.

He’s pulling back when cool fingers wrap around his wrist.

“Stay.”

“I am, Lo. I’ll be right here –”

“No,” Loki mutters, then attempts to shuffle to one side of the bed. “ _Stay_.” _Next to me._

When the sun finally rises and the country stirs awake, Pepper opens her eyes to see the brothers squeezed onto one cot, Thor’s larger frame wrapped protectively around Loki’s slighter one. They’re breathing evenly, in sync, and Thor looks so content that Pepper can’t help but take a picture.

“From what Doctor Banner has been telling me,” Shuri mumbles sleepily from across the room, “I don’t know if Loki will appreciate that.”

Pepper shrugs and pockets her phone. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

 

 

 

  
It takes another two days before Loki has enough energy to get out of bed. The first thing he demands is for a hot bath, so Thor escorts him to a room that T’Challa had set aside for them. While Loki stands under the shower spray, sloughing off the dirt and grime from battle and the last few days, Thor runs him a bath. He dumps a whole bottle of bubble bath product into the water, rifling through cupboards for something he can use to scrub Loki's back while the bubbles form.

“You've lost weight,” he says, eyes on Loki's naked body. He keeps his voice quiet, unsure if it's something Loki doesn't want to be pointed out.

Instead, his brother simply shuts off the water and walks over, droplets running off the tips of his fingers and the ends of his hair.

“Eating wasn't exactly the most important thing I've had to do.” He lets Thor help him into the bath, wincing when the heat of the water laps at his bare skin. But the discomfort soon fades and Loki sinks deep into the water, nose almost brushing the surface.

“Lo, I can't exactly scrub you clean like this.”

Under this light, Loki’s eyes are so blue.

“I never said I wanted that.”

So Thor sets the sponge down.

“Join me?”

It's probably not a good idea, Thor thinks, to be doing whatever Loki wants without question. But he can't quite bring himself to care.

He strips, quick and efficient, and he's settling into the tub not a minute later. They sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder, for such a long time that the water is lukewarm and the bubbles are all but gone when Loki finally turns to him.

“Did you mean to do it?”

“Do what?”

Thor watches as his brother runs a wet thumb across his own lips. “Kiss me.”

“Of course. Have you ever known me to do something I do not want to?”

Loki studies him, likely looking for signs that Thor is lying.

“Why did you do it?”

The water ripples when Thor shrugs. “It felt right, I suppose. I’ve had a lot of time to think, Loki.”

“You? Think? That’s something you don’t hear about every day.” The jest lacks any of Loki’s previous venom and Thor laughs.

“Oh, Loki. It’s always been you, you know. The one I know, despite many qualms, will always be by my side. For neither one of us can truly be without the other. Sure, we can live and breathe and function perfectly fine without each other, but I can never be _without_ you. Because you are, and always have been, a part of what makes me the person I am. I see you in everyone I have ever loved – Mother’s gift with seiðr, Father’s ability to rule, Jane’s sharp tongue and intellect.” He smiles to himself. “Your beauty and elegance, however, is quite unrivalled.”

He twists around, pressing a button on the keypad for more hot water. Loki helps by adding another bottle of bath product, cheeks pink.

“After years and years of thought, it really all comes down to one simple revelation. I used to think that love is something people would die for. I believed it so much; in fact, you would be ashamed to know that I have contemplated death many a time while you were gone. But now, seeing you alive and being able to hold you in my arms, I’ve realised that love is something you should live for.

“I have always loved you. That is irrefutable. I have always been in love with you, too. That is also irrefutable. The biggest mistake I’ve made is never telling you just how much I loved you. You have my heart in your hands, Lo. To bruise or to caress, to keep or to toss aside. Yours, always.”

Loki’s eyes are downcast, lashes a stark swipe of ink against his skin.

“Always,” he echoes, fingers running through bubbles. _You must know how much I love you, and that I will never stop loving you._

Thor hears those very words in his own head, in his own voice.

“What – Loki, how do you know I said that?”

“Mother,” Loki says simply.

 

 

 

  
It turns out that Loki, after resurrecting from his death at Thanos’ hands almost two years later, found himself far too weak to move from the gates of Fólkvangr. Frigga, who had apparently chosen to join Freyja in the afterlife as opposed to Odin in Valhalla, took him in and nursed him back to health.

While Loki recovered, lying on soft, springy grass in the meadow, Frigga told him everything he needed to know. After Thor left Asgard and returned to the future, Frigga had immediately gone to look for 2013 Loki. There, they shared what they had learned, and they agreed upon a plan.

“Why didn’t you just send my old self to the future?”

“You’re smart, Loki,” Frigga chided. “Surely you know the answer to that.”

Loki did.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because, stubborn child, you love your brother just as much as he loves you. You pledged your undying fidelity to him, did you not? You gave your life up for him, did you not?”

Sighing, Loki shut his eyes and grumbled when Frigga’s thumb smoothed out the crease between his brows.

“I shouldn’t have said _or_ done that.”

He received an indulgent kiss to his temple, Frigga’s amusement as clear as day.

“Now, if we’re going to send you back, you’ll need to train. You haven’t been practising your seiðr as often as I’ve told you too, have you?”

“Oh, for Norns’ – _Mother!_ ”

 

 

 

  
“It took you three years to train?”

Loki grimaces, letting Thor wrap him up in a fluffy towel. “Not just train. I had to… pay Freyja back for her generosity. For, you know, letting me stay in Fólkvangr and all.”

“What did –”

The blush that rises up Loki’s neck and into his cheeks is a wonderful cherry red. “I would very much like to avoid talking about that.”

They dress in silence, Loki choosing soft cotton pieces to slip into while Thor settles for his usual breeches. It’s barely lunchtime, but they retire to bed anyway, Loki willingly curling into the warmth of his brother’s embrace.

“You shouldn’t love me, you know.”

At that statement, an ache nudges against the walls of Thor’s heart.

“Why not?”

Loki lifts one of his hands and Thor follows suit, his palm pressing against the back of Loki’s. Their fingers thread together, thick amongst thin.

“I don’t want to touch you with these hands.”

Thor doesn’t understand. He frowns at the back of Loki’s head. “Loki?”

“I don’t want to touch you with the same hands that have killed innocents. These hands are not the same as the ones that touched you all those centuries ago. They’ll taint you, Thor, they’re bloody and cursed and –” Thor feels a shudder ripple through Loki’s frame.

“Do you love me, Loki?”

His brother falls silent, fingers clamped around Thor’s like a vice.

“...Yes,” comes the resigned answer.

“Really?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Loki snaps. “Don’t you doubt me, Thor, not after –”

“I never doubted,” Thor interrupts, bending to nose at the curve of Loki’s jaw. “I just wanted to hear it again.”

Loki falls silent, allowing Thor to settle their joined hands over his chest.

Thor strokes his thumb over the jut of Loki’s knuckles, over and over again until Loki’s breathing evens out and deepens. Loki is still awake, that much he knows, so Thor breathes him in and says, “I want your hands on me, Lo. These very hands. Everywhere, all over. I’ll take your sins into my skin and absolve you. In return, you can have mine.”

With his free hand, he curls it around the base of Loki’s throat. Perhaps it’s a perverse imitation of what Thanos did, except Thor exerts no strength and Loki doesn’t seize in terror. Thor brushes his lips against the jut of Loki’s jaw and his brother turns just enough for their lips to meet.

This time, Loki kisses back. He kisses with desperate fervour, like a starving ghost ravenous for life. Their kisses are sloppy and messy and a little out of sync, but Thor is practically singing inside.

Loki takes over all of his senses – the taste of him, the feel of him, the little sounds that escape his throat. Every breath Thor takes is Loki, and when he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is the flush riding high on Loki’s cheekbones.

“Is that acceptable?” Thor asks in-between kisses. “Will you put your hands on me?”

Loki pulls away and his eyes are bright with tears.

A hand settles on Thor’s bare chest, right over his heart. Loki doesn’t say anything, but that’s all the agreement that Thor needs.

 

 

 

  
Later that night, when the moon is high in the sky and everyone is asleep, Loki twists around in Thor’s hold and whispers, “Brother, touch me. Heal me. Bring me salvation.”

Thor does, without complaint, because he would do anything for the man currently in his arms. He touches Loki from head to toe, reverent in the way he rids him of his clothes and spreads him out over the sheets.

Fingertips commit each curve, dip, and edge of Loki’s body to memory in a way that Thor has never been able to before this. He had the chance to, back when they were young and free, and he’d squandered it. This time, he’s going to do it differently.

Thor proceeds to test himself with his lips, from the line of Loki’s shoulders to the keys of his ribs, from the pebbled points of dusky nipples to the hard jut of hipbones, from the tapered muscles of lean thighs to the soft curve of his balls.

He gets everything right.

Loki’s gaze stays fixated on him, lashes trembling when Thor takes him into his mouth and runs a gentle finger down between his cheeks. It’s dark in the room so Thor relies on his hearing to guide him – little gasps and moans that tell him what Loki likes and what he loves.

“You wanted to absolve me, brother?”

Thor hums his confirmation around a mouthful of cock, his free hand caressing the soft skin on the inside of Loki’s thigh.

“So absolve me from the inside out.”

A vial of oil finds its way into Thor’s hands, oil finding its way around Thor’s fingers, fingers finding their way deep into Loki’s heat. When three work in and out with ease, Thor leans down over Loki and slides home.

Loki buries a whimper into golden hair, arms sliding beneath Thor’s armpits and over his shoulders to lock him in place. Chests flush, Thor simply rocks in and out, murmuring sweet nothings into Loki’s ear and right over his pulse point.

“You’re good inside and out, Lo,” Thor tells him, “so good.”

Loki comes with a cry.

 

 

 

  
Loki joins Shuri and Bruce in the lab as soon as he’s able to.

While Tony’s condition hasn’t declined since they brought him to Wakanda two weeks ago, it hasn’t improved either, and when Loki walks in to offer his help, Shuri almost wraps him up in a wailing hug. Bruce stops her just in time and convinces her that Loki isn’t much of a hugger.

“He looks well,” Pepper tells him one afternoon. They’re outside the lab, watching through a window as the three brainiacs crowd around a screen.

It’s true; Loki’s been eating and sleeping well, putting on a couple of much-needed pounds and bringing colour back to his cheeks. Thor had even overheard Wanda complaining about how Loki gets to have such shiny and silky hair while she’s stuck with strands that frizz in humidity.

“Yes,” Thor agrees. “It pleases me greatly to see.”

“I never thought I would get to see him like this,” Pepper adds with a vague wave in Loki’s direction. “It’s… different.”

A few days ago, Pepper had enveloped Loki in a hug that lasted far longer than what Loki is used to. Teary-eyed and with a watery smile, she thanked him for everything he had done during the Battle of Earth and for his continued efforts at saving Tony. Thor, standing a few feet away, watched with blatant amusement as Loki’s cheeks went red, first from severe discomfort then from severe embarrassment.

“You should be proud,” Thor told him after, “of what you did.”

“It doesn’t undo any of the mistakes I’ve done.”

“No,” agreed Thor, “but good deeds do not exist solely to negate evil ones.”

After that, Loki seemed a little more determined to figure out a solution, sometimes skipping a meal (when Thor isn’t there to make sure he eats) or staying up through the night (when Thor isn’t there to make sure he sleeps) to work. This goes on for another week and a half; Loki working in the lab while Thor leaves Wakanda during the day to help with the clean-up and restorations in New York.

When Thor returns one night, he slips into their room to find the bed empty. Already knowing where his brother is, he takes a quick shower and traipses off to find him, leaving a trail of water droplets behind him as he goes. Sure enough, he finds Loki lying on the floor in the lab, staring up at the ceiling.

“Uh, Lo?”

“I don’t think I can do it,” Loki answers after a pause. There’s a half-eaten sandwich lying a few feet away, limp and soggy from neglect. “Combined, the Stones simply contain too much power. If the damage was only caused by two Stones, maybe three at the most, I might still be able to heal him, and only with the help of Lady Shuri and Bruce. But this? This is impossible.”

Thor can hear the frustration lacing his words. He crouches down by his brother’s head, running the pads of his thumbs from the middle of Loki’s forehead out to his temples. Loki sighs, eyes fluttering shut.

“The most I can do now is keep him as he is. Unconscious, unresponsive – essentially dead, if not for the fact that he’s still breathing. Is that better than death? I don’t quite know.”

“Have you spoken to the Lady Pepper about it?”

Another sigh. “No. How does one go about a conversation like that?”

“She is a very sensible woman,” Thor says. “I think she would prefer straightforwardness over anything else.”

“Does this not seem like I have given her and her daughter false hope?”

Thor slides a hand down, fingers curving around Loki’s jaw and the tips of his fingers dipping lovingly into the hollow of his throat.

“Sometimes hope is all you have to go on.”

 

 

 

  
In the end, Pepper makes the decision to let Tony go.

Mantis pulls Tony’s consciousness back up, giving Pepper and Morgan the chance to bid him goodbye. The ladies promise Tony that they’ll be alright, holdings his hands and pressing kisses to his palm until he closes his eyes for the last time, his Arc Reactor flickering twice before it dies.

Through it all, Loki stands at the back of the lab. Face impassive, he watches the affair quietly, fingers curled into loose fists by his sides.

After, when everyone has left the lab to start preparations for Tony’s funeral, Thor crosses the room to Loki’s side.

“You did everything you could,” Thor murmurs, cradling Loki’s face between his palms. He drops a chaste kiss on his lips, then another on the tip of his nose. “I’m so proud of you.”

Loki lets Thor crowd him against the wall and shower him with kisses.

When Thor tilts Loki’s head up to kiss him on the lips, Loki murmurs a soft, “Is it bad that I’m glad it wasn’t you?”

Their lips brush; they share air.

“It could’ve been,” Thor admits. Loki’s eyes are almost iridescent up close. “It nearly was. Stark was the one who stopped me from putting it on.”

Loki’s breath hitches.

 

 

 

  
Throughout the funeral, Loki stands by Thor’s side.

“He was a good man,” Loki says quietly as the wreath floats downstream.

“He was,” Thor agrees.

A slender hand, cool to the touch, wraps around Thor’s and squeezes.

 

 

 

  
Steve calls for a meeting four days after the funeral.

With almost two dozen of them (and a snoozing Morgan in Pepper’s arms) squeezed into a room, Steve is unable to pace.

“We have a lot of things to do,” he says, arms crossed over his chest as he scratches at the stubble dotting his jawline. His leg jiggles, clearly itching for movement. “No one expected us to undo what Thanos did; bringing the other half of the population back, while a great victory, has had consequences that we now need to deal with. Most cities around the world, if not all, are not equipped to deal with the sudden increase in population, not when they’ve spent the last five years with much less.

“We need to help with things like relocation, peace keeping, resource allocation… you get the idea. Once everyone is ready, we will be splitting up into small teams and divvying up the areas. It’ll be a long, hard mission, so –”

A delicate cough sounds from the middle of the room and all eyes turn to look at Loki, who’s perched on Thor’s knees.

“Excuse me, but why am I here?”

Steve blinks at him. “Oh. Um, I thought you would be helping. Was I...”

Thor hides his laughter in Loki’s messily braided hair.

“There’s only so much good I’m willing to do at once,” Loki says, sounding incredibly unhappy at the idea of helping mere mortals once again. Thor knows that it’s all an act, but he’s the only one blessed with such knowledge.

Everyone’s silent, unsure of how to proceed. They can’t simply _let Loki run amok_ , but it’s not as if they have the ability to control him, either. Loki, clearly enjoying himself, plays with a loose thread on Thor’s hoodie and lets the room stew.

Then, when Steve is just about to break out into a cold sweat, Loki sighs heavily and says, “Fine, I guess I’ll help out on Earth. But in return, I get to do whatever I want on other planets.”

“Deal,” Steve says a split second before Carol chokes on her spit.

In-between hacking coughs, she blurts out a, “ _What?_  I can’t let you do that. Steve! You know those planets are my responsibility!”

Helpless, Steve shrugs.

Carol narrows her eyes at him and mutters something under her breath about useless men. She turns to Loki, looks him up and down, and says very pointedly, “If you do something I don’t like, I’ll find out. And when I find out, I’m going to punch you.”

“Please,” Loki drawls, slumping back against Thor’s chest. “I’ve spent a thousand years with this brute –” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, “–, which means I’ve had a thousand years of practice dodging a punch. In more ways than one, might I add. You might be stronger than Thor, Lady Carol, but do not underestimate _me_.”

He looks at Carol and smirks. “But I suppose I’ll kick it down a notch. No death, I promise.”

When Carol, at a loss for words, is reduced to a gaping mess on her chair, Steve takes the opportunity to jump in and steer the conversation back to the task at hand.

Much later, when they’ve finally gone through all the necessary details and Steve lets them go, Thor corners Loki against a wall in the empty room. Mouth hot against the curve of his neck, he asks, “You think she’s stronger than me?”

A laugh, fingers trailing down the thick, corded muscles of Thor’s biceps.

“A thousand years, Thor, and you still cannot tell my lies from my truths?”

“Sometimes they’re hard to tell apart,” Thor says, nipping at Loki’s bottom lip before soothing the sting with a swipe of his tongue. “Do you love me, brother?”

Thor eats up the soft moan that spills from Loki’s lips.

“Eternally,” Loki breathes.

Thor hitches him closer with a hand around his waist and presses his smile into Loki’s skin. “I’d bet my life on that being a truth.”

“Goodness, Thor, do you really want to be mine forever?”

Giddy, Thor latches onto milky skin with his teeth and proceeds to show Loki just how much he would love that.

**Author's Note:**

> I love them greatly ♡
> 
> I feel like I should also clarify: I love Thor in all shapes and sizes, but the way they handled his arc just screamed OOC to me. That is why I did not write fat!Thor in this fic. 
> 
> [Click for Links!](https://bluedveins.wixsite.com/evoxine)fa


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